Re "Five guilty in Bell," March 21 The jury in the first city of Bell corruption trial has found five of the six defendants, all former council members, guilty on numerous charges and is undecided on other counts. Throughout the trial, the defendants denied their guilt, blaming their actions on the influence of former City Manager Robert Rizzo. They may have a point, but it is no excuse for not governing responsibly. Their defense is an admission of unfitness for holding office in the first place.

Picking up where they left off in February, the two teams in Super Bowl XLVIII, Seattle and Denver, open the 2014 NFL season with blockbuster games. The league released its schedule Wednesday, revealing the defending champion Seahawks will play host to Green Bay in the opener Thursday, Sept. 4, and Indianapolis will play at the Broncos in the opening Sunday night game. Packers-Seahawks is a rematch of a 2012 "Fail Mary" game won by Seattle on the final play, a controversial touchdown pass that from every camera angle looked to be an interception by Green Bay. Replacement officials called it a touchdown for the Seahawks, however, and that game proved to be the final straw that ended the officiating lockout.

FT. MEADE, Md. -- Top officials in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, including the two presidents themselves, repeatedly and publicly pronounced a group of senior Al Qaeda leaders guilty in the Sept. 11 conspiracy and created an “unlawful command influence” that pressured the U.S. military to bring capital murder charges against them in a military commission trial, defense lawyers said Friday. The lawyers, speaking at a pretrial hearing at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, asserted that the Washington officials unfairly prejudged their clients.

WASHINGTON - Victims of child pornography whose images of sexual abuse have circulated on the Internet may demand compensation from every person caught downloading and possessing the illegal images, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. But justices set aside a $3.4-million restitution order handed down against a Texas man on behalf of one victim, ruling that a single defendant who possesses the pornography may not be forced to pay the full amount of damages due the victim. The 5-4 decision upholds part of the Violence Against Women Act and opens a new chapter in compensating victims who say the online circulation of their images has forced them to relive the sexual abuse they experienced as children.

When Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. announced in 2009 that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other accused Sept. 11 conspirators would be tried in a civilian federal court, we said that his decision "makes an eloquent statement about the Obama administration's determination to avenge the victims of terrorism within the rule of law. " But the five never made it to civilian court; instead, thanks to domestic politics, they are being tried for murder and...

At the home he shares with his parents in Santa Clara, Bryan Stow does his best, but he still struggles to move his left arm and can barely close his hand. He must wear a diaper, needs help to take a shower and has to be reminded why a plastic shunt juts from the base of his skull. The members of Stow's family, who addressed a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Thursday, wondered if the two men who attacked the paramedic and father of two outside Dodger Stadium in 2011 knew any of that, or cared.

U.S. NAVAL BASE, GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA -- Cliff Russell lost his brother, a fireman who rushed to the first tower that was hit. Tara Henwood Butzbaugh lost her brother too, a bond trader on the 105thfloor of the same tower. For more than 10 years they have waited for this. “I wish the worst possible death for them,” Russell said, speaking on the eve of the opening in the military commission trial for the five top ringleaders in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Butzbaugh could not agree more.

Immigrants fighting deportation in San Francisco will no longer be shackled during most court hearings, according to a settlement reached with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The settlement, which received preliminary approval from a federal judge Thursday, is limited to San Francisco Immigration Court but could affect the way immigrants are treated in other jurisdictions. People held at detention centers in the San Francisco area are transported to court shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, attorneys for four immigrants wrote in a federal lawsuit filed in 2011.

FT. MEADE, Md. - Alleged terrorist mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two other defendants chose to skip the proceedings Tuesday morning when pre-trial hearings for the accused conspirators in the Sept. 11 terror attacks resumed at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The hearings are dealing with crucial issues before the five defendants can be tried, including allegations of inhumane treatment, classified information and whether the U.S. Constitution governs the military commissions process.

Criminal defendants who are sane enough to be tried for a crime may nevertheless be too mentally ill to act as their own lawyers, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday. In rejecting an appeal from a man denied the right to represent himself, the state high court said judges may insist that defendants be represented if they suffer from "a severe mental illness to the point where [they] cannot carry out the basic tasks" needed to mount a defense. But Justice Ming W. Chin, writing for the court, warned judges to apply the standard cautiously.

April 21, 2014 | By Michael Muskal, This post has been updated. See details below.

The defendant in a long-running gang case in Salt Lake City was shot by U.S. marshals when he attempted to attack a witness testifying at his trial, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said on Monday. Melodie Rydalch, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, told the Los Angeles Times that the shooting was related to the trial of Siale Angilau, an alleged member of the Tongan Crips. She described the case as “a long-running RICO” case involving the group. [Updated April 21, 1:58 p.m. PDT: The Associated Press, quoting the FBI, said that Angilau died Monday at a hospital.

Authorities are asking the public's help in identifying a group of people involved in the fatal attack of a father of three who was stabbed to death while defending a homeless man in Rancho Cucamonga. Donnie Reed died Sunday while trying to defend a homeless man from a group of people who were harassing him, Lucky Hughes, a friend and witness to the stabbing, told KTLA . The attack occurred across from Stix Sports & Grill on Foothill Boulevard around 2:25 a.m., according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - By the time Bubba Watson tapped in for a textbook par on the final hole of his opening round at the Masters, he had that familiar feeling. Watson felt both a surge of energy and a sense of ease at Augusta National, a satisfaction in the patience and precision that paved his way to a three-under-par 69 Thursday. A solid day's work. Three-way tie for second place. One shot off the lead set by Bill Haas. Two years ago, Watson left these grounds with a green jacket, triumphing in a playoff over Louis Oosthuizen with a swashbuckling, crowd-pleasing approach.

WASHINGTON - Obama administration lawyers have told the Supreme Court they will strongly defend the 29-foot-tall cross atop Mount Soledad in San Diego as a memorial to the nation's war veterans and not an unconstitutional promotion of Christianity by the government. But they also said the 9th Circuit court in San Francisco should be given “additional time for reflection” to correct its mistake and uphold the constitutionality of the cross. The administration's position, sent to the court this week, means the high court will likely have to decide the fate of the San Diego cross, but not this year.

SAN DIEGO - The Kaufmans are again defending their decision to attempt a round-the-world sailing venture with their two young children - a voyage that ended with the family being rescued hundreds of miles at sea when 1-year-old Lyra became sick. In Twitter messages Thursday, Charlotte Kaufman and her husband, Eric, said they "have been happy with the maritime life we have been able to share with our daughters. ... Children have been sailing on boats for a long time and the modern cruising family dates back several decades.

Comcast Corp., already the nation's largest cable and Internet provider, says it needs to get bigger to compete against the formidable giants of Silicon Valley. The Philadelphia-based cable behemoth said in a government filing Tuesday that its proposed $40-billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable Inc. will benefit consumers without limiting competition. Both companies contend that they need muscle to compete against emerging competition from Google Inc., Apple Inc., Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Comcast said in a 175-page document filed with the Federal Communications Commission that the deal would mean better Internet and cable TV service for millions of consumers.

A federal judge today dismissed charges against three of Gov. Edwin Edwards' seven co-defendants in a federal racketeering trial, accepting defense arguments that evidence against them was insufficient. U.S. District Judge Marcel Livaudais freed the governor's nephew, Charles David Isbell; Philip Brooks, a former New Orleans city attorney, and architect Perry Segura.

One way to right a wrong is to write a lot, a judge believes. District Judge Mike Erwin sentenced a shoplifter to write 10,000 times: "I will not steal other people's property." Another woman, who pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to a burglary, had to write 10,000 times: "I will not do anything stupid again." The judge, who has issued dozens of such sentences, said he hopes forcing defendants to write about their crimes will make them think about what they have done.

As the uproar continues over how administrators initially responded to a viral cellphone video that showed a popular Santa Monica High School teacher taking down a student in class, Gabrielle Kinslow-Bourget recalls a very different scene. When her middle child, Al, died of cancer last year, Mark Black -- the longtime teacher and wrestling coach at the center of the current firestorm -- stood by the family's side. Black, who was Al's wrestling coach and mentor, rallied community members for a celebration of Al's life in the high school wrestling room -- a place Kinslow-Bourget said her son called “a second home.” Now the coach, who Kinslow-Bourget, a single mother of three, called a “household name,” has been placed on paid administrative leave following a physical altercation with a student inside a classroom.

When federal prosecutors charged Colorado resident Jamshid Muhtorov in 2012 with providing support to a terrorist organization in his native Uzbekistan, court records suggested the FBI had secretly tapped his phones and read his emails. But it wasn't just the FBI. The Justice Department acknowledged in October that the National Security Agency had gathered evidence against Muhtorov under a 2008 law that authorizes foreign intelligence surveillance without warrants, much of it on the Internet.